When to drop a losing tipster.

An SBC member asked a very important question in the ‘Comments’ section recently:

“I was wondering if you could give some insight into what goes into your decision to stop following certain tipsters please??

How do you decide what is just a downturn and can be reversed, and when something just isn’t worth chucking anymore money at/down the drain for – if you know what I mean?”

This is such a complex topic, as there are so many factors that play a part in the decision-making process. We can either allow ourselves to be dictated by statistics and take a scientific approach, or rely on as abstract a notion as ‘gut feel’.

Looking first at the use of tangible data to help guide us, and one very easy way to make such decisions is to simply quit when your bank has gone. If you set up a betting bank of an appropriate size, and this is money set aside that you can afford to lose (which it should be), then simply follow the tipster until those funds have been used up. After all, that is the reason for having a betting bank, isn’t it?

I have to confess that it is often not that simple, and I believe that many people are affected by the level of stress they come under when a losing run has taken more than 50% of their allotted funds. Perhaps a compromise between 100% fund ‘commitment’ and this stress is to follow SBC guidance, if it is an SBC-monitored service that is causing the pain. I know that the SBC does not drop services from their Hall of Fame without a serious amount of thought, so perhaps that might be a trigger for you dropping a service, of if the comments made within the Tipster Profit Report are particularly worrisome and the associated ratings are cut drastically then this might act as your cue.

Then we have more subtle signs that perhaps should be picked up on if we’ve our wits about us. Is the tipster beginning to come up with bets that surprise us, almost as if they are chasing their losses? Are these bets outside the remit of their normal field of expertise, eg. is a horse racing expert who has built previous success on long-priced winners suddenly looking more frequently at the shorter odds runners after a lengthy losing spell? Or is a football tipster suddenly issuing bets from leagues that have never previously been covered? If they are, then the warning bells ought to start ringing in your head, and you may decide that you don’t wish to follow a tipster that has seemingly lost confidence and focus.

In short, knowing when the best time is to drop a tipster is a difficult and inexact science, unless you use the first method – ie. follow until your allocated funds have been used. This is the approach you would take if wanting to do everything by the book, but with the best will in the world, we have to acknowledge that this isn’t an easy thing to do. As we know, the psychology of losing is so very difficult to control. Accepting this is so, I’d suggest following SBC-monitored services only (and why wouldn’t you – there’s plenty of choice after all!) and then read your Tipster Profit Reports carefully. If you see a ‘Sell’ rating, you know what to do.

Portfolio performance from May 1st – 26th May

It’s been one of those weeks when you feel you want to drop all the bloomin’ tipsters! It looks like May is going to end in the red after a particularly poor weekend. The last week has been particularly poor for Racing Service 2 (which was perhaps due one after the previous week’s heroics), Football Service 1 (which has had a shocker of a month), Golf Insider (which had another blank week), and Northern Monkey.